Tonight, Boulder’s ClimateSmart team will be hosting a community dialogue on the city’s response to climate change (get the details here). Boulder Carbon Tax Tracker plans to be at the event, which appears aimed at generating some grassroots support, using volunteers to leverage community action and help change behaviors that contribute to Boulder’s carbon footprint.

The city plans to document the ideas that come up and share them with those who attend, or who take an online survey. That sounds like a great way to encourage dialogue about the effort by, as ClimateSmart’s Beth Powell suggested in a comment on our site last week, bringing people together both in virtual terms and in real, physical ones.

Another way to encourage dialogue is to provide as much information about the scope of the program as possible, to help the community understand how well it has succeeded. So, for instance, we’ll be asking the city to provide up-to-date data about how much revenue Xcel Energy has raised for the city so far through the carbon tax, as well as request an account of how this money has been spent so far.

Another important question: Now that Gov. Ritter has proposed a climate action plan for state, we’re wondering how the city’s existing plan might fit in with the one being developed for Colorado as a whole?

While tonight’s gathering might not be able to get deeply, if at all, into these questions, we think they’re ones that need to be asked, and answered, in order for the community to understand and participate in the program more fully.

Boulder’s initative to cut greenhouse gasses has a fabulous-looking public face in the ClimateSmart web site launched last September. Only trouble is, behind the handsomely designed and info-rich site, it appears there’s virtually no “community” in this community effort!

We here at Boulder Carbon Tax Tracker certainly understand that problem. Cultivating a vibrant online community is a real beast. You may have noticed that we’ve been having a hard time with that ourselves. Still, it’s a beast that must be tamed if educational programs like Climate Smart that rely on participation and buy-in from local citizens are to truly succeed.

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The Colorado Carbon Fund, brainchild of the Governor’s Energy Office, seemed to become a more tangible, richer thing at the University of Colorado last week when CU pledged to spend about $50,000 on carbon offsets from the Fund. Colorado Governor Bill Ritter was even on hand to talk about it.

But what is it? Well, it’s an idea.

The Colorado Carbon Fund was started by the Governor’s Energy Office as a localized alternative to Renewable Energy Credits that would help Colorado make strides toward more voluntary environmentally-sound practices on a large scale.

Credits, which can be bought from middlemen like Community Energy, CU’s dealer over the past, function kind of like retroactive investments in renewable energy. For example, the credits that CU had been buying helped alleviate, in part, the startup costs of a wind farm in southeastern Colorado, according to Susan Innis, program manager of the Colorado Carbon Fund.

The new Carbon Fund functions differently. It’s designed to enable local entities like CU to help pay for local carbon offset projects. Innis gave the example of improving insulation in homes in Colorado to help preserve energy that would heat them.

“We obtain those carbon offsets from those projects and we would sell them to you,” Innis said. The functions of Renewable Energy Credits and the carbon offsets offered by the Colorado Carbon Fund are quite similar, in that they both provide money and encouragement for carbon-cutting measures, but the Colorado Carbon Fund would focus its efforts on local projects.

The CU Environmental Center learned about the Carbon Fund’s plans and opted not to renew their contract with Community Energy.

“We’re looking at a number of different certification standards and protocols for measuring,” Innis said. “There are some widely accepted methodologies for calculating greenhouse gas emissions.”

An advisory board that the Governor’s Energy Office will soon assemble will decide which standards to use, but three well-known programs they’re already looking at include the Gold Standard, the Voluntary Carbon Standard and the Green E Climate, she said.

More soon, as we talk to Dave Newport, director of the Environmental Center at CU.

Amy Gahran

This new CFL doesn’t quite fit my lamp. Grrrrr….

Today at King Soopers I bought a GE 3-way compact fluorescent bulb to see if I could replace the conventional incandescent bulbs in my living room lamps. I’m glad I bought just one as a test, because I just tried to install it and was dismayed to find that I couldn’t get it into my lamp.

I think it would fit once it’s screwed in, but it’s too tall to get past the metal support for the lampshade.

This is frustrating… I’ll basically have to dismantle part of the lamp just to screw in a light bulb. I need to figure out if I want to go to that trouble. If anyone knows of a less drastic way to get that CFL into the socket, please comment below.

Compact fluorescents are a great idea, but dumb practical issues like this probably keep a lot of people from installing them everywhere. Organizations that promote their adoption — including Boulder’s energy programs — should keep this in mind.

Finding correctly sizeds CFL bulbs isn’t as easy as it should be…

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Today’s Daily Camera features two editorials by associate editor Clint Talbott on Boulder’s latest greenhouse gas emissions inventory.

In Open that Database!, Talbott supports and amplifies my earlier request for the complete emission inventory database from the city. (Thanks!) Regarding the city’s claim that this database is proprietary, he wrote:

“In diplomatic terms, Gahran objected to the denial, arguing that the full inventory is a public document. She is right. The data upon which the city will measure the progress of its tax-funded emissions program is clearly a matter of public concern. It should be treated as a matter of public record.”

As I noted this morning, we seem to be making progress toward getting access to that inventory — not direct access at this point, but the city is will to supply data in answer to specific questions. That’s a start, and it’s my impression that the city intends to work with us on that in good faith.

However, I still intend to push for direct access to the database. I explained that in a comment I posted to Talbott’s first editorial… (more…)

Amy Gahran

The main level of my home has LOTS of windows — all inefficient.

Earlier I wrote about my home’s new attic fan, which (so far this summer) is doing a much better job of keeping my home cool than the aging central air conditioning unit ever did. I am running it during most of the day, however.

Jay Stein of E Source pointed out that this is not an ideal practice. He commented: “You’re not supposed to run the fan all day long. Just run it at night, when it’s cool out. Be sure all the windows are open. Get the house nice and cold. Then in the morning, shut all the windows and pull down all the blinds. Your house should stay cool until the late afternoon. When the evening rolls around, open all the windows and start over again.”

Jay’s absolutely right; that is recommended practice for using an attic fan. However, our house has some significant flaws which — as far as I can tell — require some compensation as we work to correct them one at a time. Right now, running our attic fan during the day, instead of our central air conditioning, is an intermediate step toward efficiency, and an immediate step toward comfort.

In the summer, cooling our home at night has never been a problem. Our home faces west-east, the same direction as Boulder’s prevailing wind patterns. So if we open all the upstairs windows after sunset and run the bedroom ceiling fan we almost always pull a steady cross-breeze through the house that sucks out the day’s accumulated heat. So we don’t really need an attic fan for traditional reasons. It has more to do with compensating for our home’s serious daytime cooling flaws.

Plus, I personally prefer moving air far more than cooled air. I’m more comfortable in dry, moving air. I’d rather avoid air conditioning if I can — I had more than enough of it when I lived on the east coast. I don’t enjoy feeling like I’m living in a refrigerator.

Making tradeoff decisions when upgrading a home’s comfort and energy efficiency is something many Boulderites face. Much of the housing stock in town is decades old and was built by developers who apparently cared more about construction speed and profit margins than energy efficiency.

Here’s how we’re handling those decisions in our own case…

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On Tuesday I had lunch with Jay Stein, executive VP of E Source — a local information services company (sort of a think tank) for the energy industry. He’s one of Boulder’s leading experts on energy issues and projects, and their environmental impact.

As Stein and I discussed the Boulder Carbon Tax Tracker project, he pointed out one especially intriguing aspect of this issue. He observed that the 2002 city council resolution in which Boulder adopted the goals of the Kyoto Protocols (resolution 906) emphasized the principle of cost effectiveness. “It’s even in the resolution title, right up there. They chose to play up that concept,” he said.

Indeed, the formal title of that resolution is, “Establishing a policy to take cost-effective actions that benefit the community by reducing local greenhouse gas emissions” [emphasis added].

That resolution never spelled out exactly what “cost effective” means. However, it did set forth a specific emission reduction goal: 7% below the city’s estimated 1990 emissions — which means preventing emissions of 350,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide. The city’s Climate Action Plan (called for in that resolution, and finalized September 2006) established a target time frame for reductions: by 2012.

The bottom line is, this significant reduction is due in not a whole lot of time. In order to achieve this self-assigned goal, Boulder will need to get the biggest bang possible for its carbon tax bucks.

Therefore, it’s useful to explore what “cost effective” really means, and how much that principal is really driving the city’s climate action efforts…

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Amy Gahran

Boulder handyman Steve DiCesare cut through my ceiling yesterday to make way for an attic fan.

Today, Steve DiCesare (a local musician, teacher, and handyman) is finishing the installation of my new 30-inch attic fan. And I can’t wait. The top floor of my 3-story (including the finished basement) South Boulder home routinely roasts during the hottest days of summer. Since I work at home, and my office is on the top floor, that’s a problem.

The whole project, including equipment, supplies, and labor, will cost me about $600. Although I didn’t run the numbers to estimate energy savings from this project, I didn’t have to in order to decide to go for it. For me, it’s a matter of summer survival.

Which got me thinking: What really does motivate people to undertake major energy-saving projects?…

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Violator3, via Flickr (CC license)

How do you really make decisions about your energy use? We want to know.

As we’re ramping this project up, I’m spending a lot of time talking to just about anyone around town about energy use, climate change, and what Boulderites can (or will) do about it.

Something’s struck me about the role of human nature here. Repeatedly, Boulderites have expressed a desire to know how they currently “stack up” compared to their neighbors, other businesses, etc. in terms of carbon emissions. It seems that for many people, this context significantly influences their motivation and priorities — especially when it comes to investing extra money, time, or attention to save energy.

A man I recently chatted with at the supermarket probably put it best: “I really don’t know if how I live is a big problem compared to other people around here… I guess if I thought that I personally was a real bad guy, it’d be easier to buy those pricey light bulbs.”

Contrast that with this…

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